


A Mahogany Box, with Brass Inlay

by Cat_Latin



Series: Chosen Family [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AO3 1 Million, M/M, Magical Realism, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:04:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Latin/pseuds/Cat_Latin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock understood the power of silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mahogany Box, with Brass Inlay

 

Sherlock was working steadily to locate the origins of the mysterious surveillance photographs.  Black and white images of his friends, colleagues and family had arrived in the post, to Baker Street, without a return address.  They were printed on fibrous paper, with a distinctive watermark on the backs of each photo: a Halloween cat in profile, its back arched, its mouth open in a hiss.  Sherlock had seen it before.  By their quality, they were obviously wet prints, which meant a darkroom, and a non-digital camera.

It was surveillance photography, only elevated to an art form in its presentation.  The ultrasound photo of the Watsons’ child had even been reproduced to resemble the others, with the same watermark.  Sherlock knew when he was being mocked, but there were some crossed wires in the clues. 

There was the improbability of Jim Moriarty, alive, and somehow responsible.  There had been no further obvious, or not-so-obvious indications of this. 

John forged ahead in his usual manner, grimly following Sherlock on a series of excursions that brought them no closer to uncovering answers.  He worried about everyone, and seemed to thrive on being in a perpetual state of fight or flight.  Mary didn’t seem fazed by threats or danger at all.  She understood the impermanent nature of things, including herself.  She'd made peace with it, and wanted to love people, and have a family anyway. 

They were the most extraordinary people Sherlock knew. 

Sherlock surfaced momentarily at the mention of his name—

_“He’s been like this for hours,” Mary whispered._

_“Mind palace,” John said._

John, and his explanation of the “Mind Palace” droned into background, into nothing, as the exterior structure of impermeable granite rose again before him, in his mind.  

Sherlock could not explain the purple morning glories he discovered growing against the stone.  They were not his brain’s design, nor were they a coincidence.  _The universe is rarely that lazy._   He pulled them off the structure, and willed them gone.  He would not be breached within his own head.  There were _rules._  

The door appeared, Sherlock stepped through, and was surrounded again by ancient, polished oak-paneled walls.  He took the spiral staircase, up this time, fingertips trailing the brass railing, its ornamental crevices green with age, calming scent of wax and old books in his nostrils.

“Palace” was a word Sherlock specifically chose to use in conversation, to keep people from asking more questions.  Someone said “Mind Palace,” followed by a brief, dismissive explanation, and it sounded ostentatious.  The automatic response from someone ordinary was a dismissive eye-roll, and no further prompts.  That was how he liked it.

A long corridor at the top of the stairs, many rooms on either side of the hallway, one door on the facing wall, at the very end.  Sherlock moved toward this door, and opened it.  It was spacious, with high ceilings, and long, arched windows.  On this visit, the sun streamed in, and his brain even conjured dust motes drifting in the air, catching the light.  The room was empty, but for a mahogany box, with brass inlay. 

Sherlock could retrieve the box and its contents at a thought’s notice, but sometimes he liked to visit it where it lived.  He approached the box, withdrew its key from his pocket, turned it in the lock, and raised the lid.  He rummaged gently among its contents, until his fingers discovered what they were looking for.  Sherlock pulled it out to look at it.  He needed a reminder today.

It was a small clay tablet, about the size of a pack of cards, with one word written on it, in a dead language. 

Sherlock’s private word for the vast construction in his mind was _Temple_ , not Palace.    _No one else_ knew that, not even his brother. 

Sherlock had been preparing for wraiths and monsters all his life.  His first weapon against them was his brain.  He used it to ground monsters in reality.  No one needed to know how he patiently shaped superstition into reason.  He was aware of the power of silence.

He returned the tablet to the box, raised the lid a bit more, and paused briefly over the gilded birth certificate which held the name he’d secretly given to the Watson’s child.  Beneath it was the thing he’d been looking for, kept here also out of sentiment: the cat-shaped watermark.  He knew where he’d seen it, and its presence was disturbing. 

In the outside world, he’d used this mark as a means to communicate with one other individual he not-so-secretly admired, and only sometimes trusted.  They couldn’t stand to be in proximity for any length of time, but seemed to share a compulsion for keeping tabs on one-another. 

As they’d journeyed from Karachi, back to London, over a period of three weeks (John had been told Sherlock had gone away on an archaeological dig to examine skeletons for evidence of damage from projectile weapons, prior to the invention of guns), they’d stamped the mark to newspapers, stencil-sprayed it to light posts, hung flyers of it in coffee shops, to keep track of one another in several cities, as they’d made their circuitous way home. 

In Sherlock’s _Temple_ , in the box where he kept his secret names for things, the mark was embossed on a dead camera phone.

 

 

Mycroft arrived on Thursday, bearing a gift in the shape of a file folder.  Among other things, the folder contained evidence of a trail of purchases: darkroom chemicals, safelight filters, processing trays, and finally rental space, leading to an old shoe factory in Stoke Newington.  The building had been converted to art studios.  Mycroft also provided a set of keys, which Sherlock ignored in favor of his lock picks.  John had thanked Mycroft and pocketed them.

Mycroft’s locusts had already been through the building to question and terrorize the populace.  The darkroom was on the top floor, a mostly empty room. 

“Whoever rented it must have brought almost all of their supplies,” John said.  “Not much need for darkrooms anymore.”  He paged through the notes Mycroft’s team provided.  “According to the log, it was rarely used, and the last rental was six days before the photos arrived at your door.” 

There was a window in the darkroom, with a blackout shade.  Movement behind the shade suggested the window was open.  John pushed it aside to have a look, and yelped.  A black cat leapt from the windowsill onto the floor, and bounded out the door, into the maze of rooms and levels within the warehouse. 

“Not just improbability then, but _dramatic_ improbability,” Sherlock said softly, in its wake.  He raised the shade and looked out the window.  It was closed.  The sun had just gone down.

John read more from the report. “Mycroft’s people got one vague description of the renter: indeterminate gender, small, pale, baggy clothes, hooded jumper, possibly dark hair.  That could describe half the art students in London.”

Sherlock wondered who she was working for.  It was almost certainly under duress.  He wasn’t ready to tell John, or Mary.  He needed more information, so he could form a strategy.  He had identified the messenger.  All they could do now, was wait for the next message.

For the moment, Sherlock wanted to shift gears.  He clapped his hands decisively and said, “We’re finished here.  He let his eyes settle on John and stay there, for the first time all day.  John stood expectant, ready for the next adventure, and something fluttered in Sherlock’s chest, and dropped down to settle warm in his gut.  It must have shown on his face.  John smiled a little, and Sherlock said, “Follow me.” 

“Where?” John asked, but Sherlock was already on the move, and John was already at his heels.  John followed Sherlock through the top floor of the building, let Sherlock herd him out the back door, to the fire escape, where he paused to brush his lips against John’s.  “I would like to ravish you in a filthy alley.  Coming?”

“Probably too quickly,” John muttered, as they fled down flight after flight, swiftly and quietly, past a skip, and into an alcove with a boarded up door. 

Sherlock leaned into John, braced his hands against the door on either side of John’s head, and took his mouth in a heated kiss.  Such a relief to feel John’s body in close proximity, to taste his tongue, and breathe in his scent.   He slid his hands inside John’s jacket, pulled his shirt out from his trousers, fumbled with his belt, their kisses getting sloppier, and growing teeth.  John’s hands scrabbled at his shoulders and arms.  Sherlock bent his head and sunk his teeth into the smooth, perfect, fragrant spot where John’s jaw met his throat.

“Gah, Sherlock, that's going to leave a mark!  What did we say about above the collar—ah!”

“You,” Sherlock said, between kisses and nips, “Have been supremely distracting,” tugged at his earlobe a bit with his teeth, “ _All day_.”

“I guess I always imagined sex for you would be like food or sleep…something you wouldn’t do on a case.”

“Perhaps I learned some patience, and gained broader perspective while I was away.”  Sherlock had mostly managed to get John’s shirt untucked from his trousers. “Why are you laughing?”  John’s hands went weak on Sherlock as he laughed some more.  “I believe we’ve firmly established the Game is never over, and if that’s the case, then nothing should be postponed.”  John’s belt was putting up a fight.  “We’ll even _eat_ later,” Sherlock said brightly.  The belt came free.  “We can get dumplings, Jammie Dodgers, whatever you’d like when we’re finished here, and for my final trick, I’ll sleep not three, but six full hours tonight.  Sex, food and sleep.  You should be ecstatic, doctor.  Call Mary.”

“What?”

“She has that tedious follow up appointment.  Doctor Singh is always at least fifteen minutes late, and she’s taken the new Bluetooth out for a test run, so she can be hands free for…for the baby.” 

“Shit, I’d forgotten,” John’s head thumped against the door.

“I told her we’d meet her after,” Sherlock said quickly, searching John’s pockets for his phone.  After some thorough groping, and only mildly derailed by John’s hands and breathless squirming, he found it, in John’s right front jeans pocket.  He dialed Mary.  “For now, we’ll help her pass the time.”

Mary answered on the first ring. “If you’re kidnapped in an alley somewhere, you’ll have to wait.”

“There _is_ an alley,” Sherlock allowed.  “You’re just walking in to the surgery now.  You stopped for something sweet.”

“Might be nice to say hello to one another,” John grumbled.

“John’s admonishing us for our lack of nice,” Sherlock reported, switching the phone to speaker.  “I have you on speakerphone, and I have your husband cornered in an alleyway behind a warehouse in Hackney.  I thought we’d keep you occupied, while you twiddle your thumbs in the waiting room.  Unless you’d rather peruse the months-old copies of _Mother and Baby_ they’ve got scattered about.” 

“What did you have in mind, you gorgeous madman?”  Mary spoke very quietly.  Ensconced in the waiting area then, with others nearby.

“I’m going to do things to him, and he’s going to tell you what they are in a moment, as soon as his mouth is free.”

Sherlock heard her sharp gasp as he handed the phone to John.  “Don’t drop it.”  He devoured John’s mouth in another fierce kiss, then let his lips graze down John’s chest, pausing to close his teeth around the fabric covering John’s left nipple for a moment, down, over the buttons of his shirt, and then down, mashing his face against John’s flies, as he slowly went to his knees. 

“Oh, help me,” John whispered into the phone.

“There’s no help,” Mary replied, with a laugh.

More specifically, Sherlock rested his knees on the toes of John’s oxfords.  He was committed, hell he was already _hard_ , but the ground was damp and filthy, and his trousers were 100% wool. 

“What is he doing?”  Mary was working hard to keep her voice low and level, her breathing even.

“He’s on his knees now, opening my trousers.”

Sherlock opened John’s flies, and inhaled against his straining erection. 

“Oh, you lucky, lucky boy,” Mary purred.

He pictured Mary sitting at the edge of the chair closest to the door, furthest from the television, where most of the others would be focused. 

John’s stance was wide enough for Sherlock to fumble his own trousers open as he pulled John’s cock, already rigid and wet at the tip—glorious, through the opening in his pants.  He took him in his mouth, working the glans with his lips, tonguing the slit and the underside—John was particularly sensitive there, taking it in slowly, and dragging back out with a pop.

“His _mouth_!”

Mary would be curled over a bit, one hand on her round abdomen, the other lightly touching the Bluetooth, universal body language of ‘ _not crazy, not actually talking to myself_ ,’ that people seemed to employ while wearing them.  She would be sitting with her knees together (still annoyed she could no longer cross her legs), and only a close observer would see the muscles of her legs tighten, see the flush on her cheeks, or her darkened eyes.

Sherlock found a good rhythm, hollowed his cheeks, tried to get John to put his hand on his head, to move his hips.

“Don’t,” John said, “You’ll choke.”

Sherlock made a frustrated noise, more like a snort.

Mary whispered, “What’s happening, love?  Have I lost you?”

Sherlock hummed, and slowly took John into his throat, and John nearly dropped the phone.

Mary whispered, “Hello?” Then loudly, “You teasing bastards, I will make both of you pay!” Then they heard, “ _Sorry_!  Sorry,” as she apologized to her neighbors in the waiting area.  Both of them broke up laughing for a moment.  John said, “Still here,” and gasped as Sherlock took him back down. Sherlock pulled off long enough to lock eyes with John and growl, “ _Do it_.”

“What did he say?” 

“He wants me to fuck his throat.”

“Well, don’t keep him waiting, love.”

Sherlock pulled off with a pop again and said, “Yes, don’t keep him waiting,” and dove back in.  John locked the fingers of his free hand in Sherlock’s hair and lifted himself away from the door.  Sherlock’s knees pinned his feet to the ground, giving him good leverage to thrust shallowly into Sherlock’s mouth.  His body began to quake.

“Oh, oh, fuck, Mary, Sherlock!  _Fuck_.”  Sherlock’s mouth filled with John’s semen.  He let it bathe his tongue and throat, kept his mouth on John, working him through the aftershocks.  Then he nuzzled into the crevice between John’s spent cock and his thigh and groaned, his hips working now to push his own aching cock into his fist.

“Tell me,” Mary whispered.

“He’s still on his knees at my feet.  His face is in my groin, his hand is on his cock, he’s coming, _god_ , _Sherlock_ , on the fucking ground,” as Sherlock shuddered and muffled his cries against John’s leg.

“I’ve just been called,” Mary said suddenly.  “Good lord, I hope she waits to take my temperature.”

“I love you,” John said, and rang off.  “You too,” he said to Sherlock, and helped him to his feet.  Sherlock fastened his trousers, and leaned in for another kiss.  John smiled gently at him and stroked his cheeks with his thumbs.

“Do you plan to call Mary any time we have a go without her?”

“Only when I know she’s bored.”

“I’m not complaining, and I know she appreciated it.  It was amazing.  Just…it can be just you and I sometimes.  It’s allowed.  You know that, right?”

Actually, Sherlock hadn’t.  He opened his mouth to say something, but it was suddenly his turn to be pressed to the door and kissed dizzy.

“ _MEOW_.”

Sherlock saw the cat.  It was a shiny patch of black against the matte shadows of the alley.  It lounged on the fire escape, watching them upside-down, its tail swishing leisurely.  It grew alert at Sherlock’s attention, and rose to its feet, leaping lightly from the steps to the skip, to the ground.

“It’s wearing a tag,” Sherlock said, gently disentangling himself from John.  “I want to see it.  Don’t move John, it will sense your inherent cat-hatred and bolt.”

“I don’t hate cats that much, Sherlock, wait!”

The cat ran down the alley, with Sherlock chasing it.

“Meet me at the front door!” Sherlock turned to shout.  John swore and complied, mostly because he had to stop to fasten his trousers.

The cat raced across a busy street, ears flattened, barely avoiding being hit.  Sherlock pursued it into another alley with a brick wall at the end.  It stopped and crouched, tail puffed, claws extended.

Sherlock approached it slowly.  The cat allowed him near it, close enough to touch, and seemed to calm down when he lightly stroked its back. 

The air shifted around the creature, there was a flash of light, and the cat was gone.  In its place was a small human figure, dressed in baggy cargo trousers and a hooded jumper, crumpled against the wall.  It was Irene Adler. 

Sherlock fought the urge to panic.  He dropped to his knees on the filthy ground, wool trousers be damned, and folded her in his arms.  She was painfully thin, and smelled of the streets.  Her long dark hair had been buzzed close to her skull, and felt like velvet against his cheek.  Irene coughed, and laughed a little.  “Yes, I was watching.  Love looks good on you.”  She sounded hoarse, like she hadn’t used her voice in a long time.  She was trembling, and whispered, “I don’t have long.”

“How is this happening?”

She took a deep shuddering breath, and coughed again.  “I can’t say.  It hurts when you’re human.  Changing doesn’t bother _them_ ,” she added darkly.

“Irene, who is doing this?”

Despite her body’s tremors, Irene’s eyes went dreamy.  “He says I’m an artist.  He only sends me to do artistic things.”

“Who?”

She opened her mouth.  Nothing came out.  She shook her head sadly.  “He likes seeing women on their knees.  Or maybe he just likes seeing _me_ like that, in that ‘oh-how-the-mighty-have-fallen sort of way.  It hurts,” she repeated, with a grimace.  He could see her fighting to keep hold of herself.  The tremors got worse. “He has three more wishes.  Three more times to summon the black cat.”  She clutched at Sherlock’s arms.  “But don’t be fooled by things that come in threes.  Stay watchful.  I know you will.” She managed to kiss his cheek before she changed.

The cat scrambled out of his grasp and fled the scene before he got to his feet.

 

 

When they met at the front door of the warehouse, John’s face immediately reflected Sherlock’s dread.

“Oh, you’ve got that look.”

“Irene Adler is alive.”

John sighed.  “No, Sherlock, I’m sorry, but she’s dead.”

“So was I,” Sherlock retorted.  Then more softly, “Mycroft doesn’t know everything.  Irene took the photographs, developed them, and put them in the post.  I’m not sure why, or who she’s working for, but she wants me to know it, John.  She’s scattering bread crumbs as we speak.  It’s against her will.”

John shook his head.  “Everyone has a choice.”

“This is different.”

“Can you explain to me why?”

“No.  You have to understand, that if I keep something from you with regards to this, it’s in your own best interest, even if I _lie_ to you, it’s in your own best interest.  Please, _please_ trust me with this.”

John didn’t like it.  Sherlock didn’t expect he would.  But he pressed no further.

 


End file.
